The Very Best of F & SF v1 (67 page)

He couldn’t bear
it, he couldn’t bear the way she looked at him as if he were a monster when he
carried her to the couch. “Are you cold?”

She just stared
at him.

“Do you want to
watch more
I Love Lucy?
Or a movie?”

She wouldn’t
respond. She could be so stubborn.

He decided on
Annie Hall.
“Do you like
Woody Allen?” She just stared at him, her eyes filled with accusation. “It’s a
love story,” he said, turning away from her to insert the DVD. He turned it on
for her, then placed the remote control in her lap, which he realized was a
stupid thing to do, since her hands were still tied behind her back, and he was
fairly certain that, had her mouth not been taped shut, she’d be giving him
that slack-jawed look of hers. She wasn’t making any of this very easy. He
picked the dish up off the floor, and the silverware, bringing them into the
kitchen, where he washed them and the pots and pans, put aluminum foil on the
leftover lasagna and put it into the refrigerator. After he finished sweeping
the floor, he sat and watched the movie with her. He forgot about the sad
ending. He always thought of it as a romantic comedy, never remembering the sad
end. He turned off the TV and said, “I think it’s late enough now. I think we’ll
be all right.” She looked at him quizzically.

First Alex went
out to his car and popped the trunk, then he went back inside where he found
poor Agatha squirming across the floor. Trying to escape, apparently. He walked
past her, got the throw blanket from the couch and laid it on the floor beside
her, rolled her into it even as she squirmed and bucked. “Agatha, just try to
relax,” he said, but she didn’t. Stubborn, stubborn, she could be so stubborn.

He threw her
over his shoulder. He was not accustomed to carrying much weight and
immediately felt the stress, all the way down his back to his knees.

He shut the
apartment door behind him and didn’t worry about locking it. He lived in a safe
neighborhood.

When they got to
the car, he put her into the trunk, only then taking the blanket away from her
beautiful face. “Don’t worry, it won’t be long,” he said as he closed the hood.

He looked
through his
CDs,
trying to choose
something she would like, just in case the sound carried into the trunk, but he
couldn’t figure out what would be appropriate so he finally decided just to drive
in silence.

It took about
twenty minutes to get to the beach; it was late, and there was little traffic.
Still, the ride gave him an opportunity to reflect on what he was doing. By the
time he pulled up next to the pier, he had reassured himself that it was the
right thing to do, even though it looked like the wrong thing.

He’d made a good
choice, deciding on this place. He and Tessie used to park here, and he was
amazed that it had apparently remained undiscovered by others seeking dark
escape.

When he got out
of the car he took a deep breath of the salt air and stood, for a moment,
staring at the black waves, listening to their crash and murmur. Then he went
around to the back and opened up the trunk. He looked over his shoulder, just
to be sure. If someone were to discover him like this, his actions would be
misinterpreted. The coast was clear, however. He wanted to carry Agatha in his
arms, like a bride. Every time he had pictured it, he had seen it that way, but
she was struggling again so he had to throw her over his shoulder where she
continued to struggle. Well, she was stubborn, but he was too, that was part of
the beauty of it, really. But it made it difficult to walk, and it was windier
on the pier, also wet. All in all it was a precarious, unpleasant journey to
the end.

He had prepared
a little speech but she struggled against him so hard, like a hooked fish, that
all he could manage to say was, “I love you,” barely focusing on the wild
expression in her face, the wild eyes, before he threw her in and she sank, and
then bobbed up like a cork, only her head above the black waves, those eyes of
hers, locked on his, and they remained that way, as he turned away from the
edge of the pier and walked down the long plank, feeling lighter, but not in a
good way. He felt those eyes, watching him, in the car as he flipped restlessly
from station to station, those eyes, watching him, when he returned home, and
saw the clutter of their night together, the burned-down candles, the covers to
the
I Love Lucy
and
Annie Hall DVDS
on the
floor, her crazy sweater on the dining room table, those eyes, watching him,
and suddenly Alex was cold, so cold his teeth were chattering and he was
shivering but sweating besides. The black water rolled over those eyes and
closed them and he ran to the bathroom and only just made it in time, throwing
up everything he’d eaten, collapsing to the floor, weeping,
What have I done? What was I thinking?

He would have
stayed there like that, he determined, until they came for him and carted him
away, but after a while he became aware of the foul taste in his mouth. He
stood up, rinsed it out, brushed his teeth and tongue, changed out of his
clothes, and went to bed, where, after a good deal more crying, and trying to
figure out exactly what had happened to his mind, he was amazed to find himself
falling into a deep darkness like the water, from which, he expected, he would
never rise.

But then he was
lying there, with his eyes closed, somewhere between sleep and waking, and he
realized he’d been like this for some time. Though he was fairly certain he had
fallen asleep, something had woken him. In this half state, he’d been listening
to the sound he finally recognized as dripping water. He hated it when he didn’t
turn the faucet tight. He tried to ignore it, but the dripping persisted. So
confused was he that he even thought he felt a splash on his hand and another
on his forehead. He opened one eye, then the other.

She stood there,
dripping wet, her hair plastered darkly around her face, her eyes smudged
black. “I found a sharp rock at the bottom of the world,” she said and she
raised her arms. He thought she was going to strike him, but instead she showed
him the cut rope dangling there.

He nodded. He
could not speak.

She cocked her
head, smiled, and said, “Okay, you were right. You were right about everything.
Got any room in there?”

He nodded. She
peeled off the wet T-shirt and let it drop to the floor, revealing her small
breasts white as the moon, unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, wiggling
seductively out of the tight wet fabric, taking her panties off at the same
time. He saw when she lifted her feet that the rope was no longer around them
and she was already transparent below the knees. When she pulled back the
covers he smelled the odd odor of saltwater and mud, as if she were both fresh
and loamy. He scooted over, but only far enough that when she eased in beside
him, he could hold her, wrap her wet cold skin in his arms, knowing that he was
offering her everything, everything he had to give, and that she had come to
take it.

“You took a big
risk back there,” she said.

He nodded.

She pressed her
lips against his and he felt himself growing lighter, as if all his life he’d
been weighed down by this extra breath, and her lips were cold but they grew
warmer and warmer and the heat between them created a steam until she burned
him and still, they kissed, all the while Alex thinking, I love you, I love
you, I love you, until, finally, he could think it no more, his head was as
light as his body, lying beside her, hot flesh to hot flesh, the cinder of his
mind could no longer make sense of it, and he hoped, as he fell into a black
place like no other he’d ever been in before, that this was really happening,
that she was really here, and the suffering he’d felt for so long was finally
over.

Return to Table of
Contents

Ted Chiang has only published a dozen
stories over the past two decades, but each of those stories—starting with
“Tower of Babylon”—has been evocative and memorable, and they have been enough
to mark him as one of the finest writers of his generation. In my eyes, “The
Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is a great example of the kinds of stories
that
F&SF has
published for the last sixty years, and plans to publish for the
next sixty... and beyond.

Mighty
Caliph
and Commander of the Faithful, I am
humbled to be in the splendor of your presence; a man can hope for no greater
blessing as long as he lives. The story I have to tell is truly a strange one,
and were the entirety to be tattooed at the corner of one’s eye, the marvel of
its presentation would not exceed that of the events recounted, for it is a
warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.

My name is
Fuwaad ibn Abbas, and I was born here in Baghdad, City of Peace. My father was
a grain merchant, but for much of my life I have worked as a purveyor of fine
fabrics, trading in silk from Damascus and linen from Egypt and scarves from
Morocco that are embroidered with gold. I was prosperous, but my heart was
troubled, and neither the purchase of luxuries nor the giving of alms was able
to soothe it. Now I stand before you without a single dirham in my purse, but I
am at peace.

Allah is the
beginning of all things, but with Your Majesty’s permission, I begin my story
with the day I took a walk through the district of metalsmiths.

I needed to
purchase a gift for a man I had to do business with, and had been told he might
appreciate a tray made of silver. After browsing for half an hour, I noticed
that one of the largest shops in the market had been taken over by
a
new merchant. It was a prized location that must have been expensive to
acquire, so I entered to peruse its wares.

Never before had
I seen such a marvelous assortment of goods. Near the entrance there was an
astrolabe equipped with seven plates inlaid with silver, a water-clock that
chimed on the hour, and a nightingale made of brass that sang when the wind
blew. Farther inside there were even more ingenious mechanisms, and I stared at
them the way a child watches a juggler, when an old man stepped out from a
doorway in the back.

“Welcome to my
humble shop, my lord,” he said. “My name is Bashaarat. How may I assist you?”

“These are
remarkable items that you have for sale. I deal with traders from every corner
of the world, and yet I have never seen their like. From where, may I ask, did
you acquire your merchandise?”

“I am grateful
to you for your kind words,” he said. “Everything you see here was made in my
workshop, by myself or by my assistants under my direction.”

I was impressed
that this man could be so well versed in so many arts. I asked him about the
various instruments in his shop, and listened to him discourse learnedly about
astrology, mathematics, geomancy, and medicine. We spoke for over an hour, and
my fascination and respect bloomed like a flower warmed by the dawn, until he
mentioned his experiments in alchemy.

“Alchemy?” I
said. This surprised me, for he did not seem the type to make such a sharper’s
claim. “You mean you can turn base metal into gold?”

“I can, my lord,
but that is not in fact what most seek from alchemy.”

“What do most
seek, then?”

“They seek a
source of gold that is cheaper than mining ore from the ground. Alchemy does
describe a means to make gold, but the procedure is so arduous that, by
comparison, digging beneath a mountain is as easy as plucking peaches from a
tree.”

I smiled. “A
clever reply. No one could dispute that you are a learned man, but I know
better than to credit alchemy.”

Bashaarat looked
at me and considered. “I have recently built something that may change your
opinion. You would be the first person I have shown it to. Would you care to
see it?”

“It would be a
great pleasure.”

“Please follow
me.” He led me through the doorway in the rear of his shop.

The next room
was a workshop, arrayed with devices whose functions I could not guess—bars of
metal wrapped with enough copper thread to reach the horizon, mirrors mounted
on a circular slab of granite floating in quicksilver— but Bashaarat walked
past these without a glance.

Instead he led
me to a sturdy pedestal, chest high, on which a stout metal hoop was mounted
upright. The hoop’s opening was as wide as two outstretched hands, and its rim
so thick that it would tax the strongest man to carry. The metal was black as
night, but polished to such smoothness that, had it been a different color, it
could have served as a mirror. Bashaarat bade me stand so that I looked upon
the hoop edgewise, while he stood next to its opening.

“Please observe,”
he said.

Bashaarat thrust
his arm through the hoop from the right side, but it did not extend out from
the left. Instead, it was as if his arm were severed at the elbow, and he waved
the stump up and down, and then pulled his arm out intact.

I had not
expected to see such a learned man perform a conjuror’s trick, but it was well
done, and I applauded politely.

“Now wait a
moment,” he said as he took a step back.

I waited, and
behold, an arm reached out of the hoop from its left side, without a body to
hold it up. The sleeve it wore matched Bashaarat’s robe. The arm waved up and
down, and then retreated through the hoop until it was gone.

The first trick
I had thought a clever mime, but this one seemed far superior, because the
pedestal and hoop were clearly too slender to conceal a person. “Very clever!”
I exclaimed.

“Thank you, but
this is not mere sleight of hand. The right side of the hoop precedes the left
by several seconds. To pass through the hoop is to cross that duration
instantly.”

“I do not
understand,” I said.

“Let me repeat
the demonstration.” Again he thrust his arm through the hoop, and his arm
disappeared. He smiled, and pulled back and forth as if playing tug-a-rope.
Then he pulled his arm out again, and presented his hand to me with the palm
open. On it lay a ring I recognized.

“That is my
ring!” I checked my hand, and saw that my ring still lay on my finger. “You
have conjured up a duplicate.”

“No, this is
truly your ring. Wait.”

Again, an arm
reached out from the left side. Wishing to discover the mechanism of the trick,
I rushed over to grab it by the hand. It was not a false hand, but one fully
warm and alive as mine. I pulled on it, and it pulled back. Then, as deft as a
pickpocket, the hand slipped the ring from my finger and the arm withdrew into
the hoop, vanishing completely.

“My ring is
gone!” I exclaimed.

“No, my lord,” he
said. “Your ring is here.” And he gave me the ring he held. “Forgive me for my
game.”

I replaced it on
my finger. “You had the ring before it was taken from me.”

At that moment
an arm reached out, this time from the right side of the hoop. “What is this?”
I exclaimed. Again I recognized it as his by the sleeve before it withdrew, but
I had not seen him reach in.

“Recall,” he
said, “the right side of the hoop precedes the left.” And he walked over to the
left side of the hoop, and thrust his arm through from that side, and again it
disappeared.

Your Majesty has
undoubtedly already grasped this, but it was only then that I understood:
whatever happened on the right side of the hoop was complemented, a few seconds
later, by an event on the left side. “Is this sorcery?” I asked.

“No, my lord, I
have never met a djinni, and if I did, I would not trust it to do my bidding.
This is a form of alchemy.”

He offered an
explanation, speaking of his search for tiny pores in the skin of reality, like
the holes that worms bore into wood, and how upon finding one he was able to
expand and stretch it the way a glassblower turns a dollop of molten glass into
a long-necked pipe, and how he then allowed time to flow like water at one
mouth while causing it to thicken like syrup at the other. I confess I did not
really understand his words, and cannot testify to their truth. All I could say
in response was, “You have created something truly astonishing.”

“Thank you,” he
said, “but this is merely a prelude to what I intended to show you.” He bade me
follow him into another room, farther in the back. There stood a circular
doorway whose massive frame was made of the same polished black metal, mounted
in the middle of the room.

“What I showed
you before was a Gate of Seconds,” he said. “This is a Gate of Years. The two
sides of the doorway are separated by a span of twenty years.”

I confess I did
not understand his remark immediately. I imagined him reaching his arm in from
the right side and waiting twenty years before it emerged from the left side,
and it seemed a very obscure magic trick. I said as much, and he laughed. “That
is one use for it,” he said, “but consider what would happen if you were to
step through.” Standing on the right side, he gestured for me to come closer,
and then pointed through the doorway. “Look.”

I looked, and
saw that there appeared to be different rugs and pillows on the other side of
the room than I had seen when I had entered. I moved my head from side to side,
and realized that when I peered through the doorway, I was looking at a
different room from the one I stood in.

“You are seeing
the room twenty years from now,” said Bashaarat.

I blinked, as
one might at an illusion of water in the desert, but what I saw did not change.
“And you say I could step through?” I asked.

“You could. And
with that step, you would visit the Baghdad of twenty years hence. You could
seek out your older self and have a conversation with him. Afterwards, you
could step back through the Gate of Years and return to the present day.”

Hearing
Bashaarat’s words, I felt as if I were reeling. “You have done this?” I asked
him. “You have stepped through?”

“I have, and so
have numerous customers of mine.”

“Earlier you
said I was the first to whom you showed this.”

“This Gate, yes.
But for many years I owned a shop in Cairo, and it was there that I first built
a Gate of Years. There were many to whom I showed that Gate, and who made use of
it.”

“What did they
learn when talking to their older selves?”

“Each person
learns something different. If you wish, I can tell you the story of one such
person.” Bashaarat proceeded to tell me such a story, and if it pleases Your
Majesty, I will recount it here.

THE TALE OF THE FORTUNATE ROPE-MAKER

There once was a
young man named Hassan who was a maker of rope. He stepped through the Gate of
Years to see the Cairo of twenty years later, and upon arriving he marveled at
how the city had grown. He felt as if he had stepped into a scene embroidered
on a tapestry, and even though the city was no more and no less than Cairo, he
looked upon the most common sights as objects of wonder.

He was wandering
by the Zuweyla Gate, where the sword dancers and snake charmers perform, when
an astrologer called to him. “Young man! Do you wish to know the future?”

Hassan laughed. “I
know it already,” he said.

“Surely you want
to know if wealth awaits you, do you not?”

“I am a
rope-maker. I know that it does not.”

“Can you be so
sure? What about the renowned merchant Hassan al-Hubbaul, who began as a
rope-maker?”

His curiosity
aroused, Hassan asked around the market for others who knew of this wealthy
merchant, and found that the name was well known. It was said he lived in the
wealthy Habbaniya quarter of the city, so Hassan walked there and asked people
to point out his house, which turned out to be the largest one on its street.

He knocked at
the door, and a servant led him to a spacious and well-appointed hall with a
fountain in the center. Hassan waited while the servant went to fetch his
master, but as he looked at the polished ebony and marble around him, he felt
that he did not belong in such surroundings, and was about to leave when his
older self appeared.

“At last you are
here!” the man said. “I have been expecting you!”

“You have?” said
Hassan, astounded.

“Of course,
because I visited my older self just as you are visiting me. It has been so
long that I had forgotten the exact day. Come, dine with me.”

The two went to
a dining room, where servants brought chicken stuffed with pistachio nuts,
fritters soaked in honey, and roast lamb with spiced pomegranates. The older
Hassan gave few details of his life: he mentioned business interests of many
varieties, but did not say how he had become a merchant; he mentioned a wife,
but said it was not time for the younger man to meet her. Instead, he asked
young Hassan to remind him of the pranks he had played as a child, and he
laughed to hear stories that had faded from his own memory.